Notes

I first met Kyle Marchulis while in line to get my pass for SXSW 2006 in Austin, TX. I was in the panelist line, so I turned to the people next to me and asked, "What panel are you on?" Kyle introduced himself and said he was on the panel, "The Secret Sex Life of Videogames."

How did you get into sex, "I asked?" It was a question that endeared me to the other panelists in line.

He said, "I have a teledildonics website called Slashdong.com. I'm a robotics engineer and one day I replaced the actuators on a robot with a sex toy. My website's open source, so anyone can experiment with my designs. I guess the moderator thinks I have something to contribute."

The usual laughs bubbled up from us and we had the type of conversation you'd imagine one would have in this situation.

That night, I was told that there was a Second Life party at the Driskill Hotel. So, I dropped by. Kyle was there. I had arrived just a few moments before he was to give a demonstration of his DIY teledildonic device. He was gracious enough to let me record him and here's the result.

At the end of his demonstration, he was showing a hacker the internals of his motor controller (many sex toys are just eloborate excuses for an electric motor, after all.) So, if you're a hardware hacker, you'll hear details towards the end of the file.

Kyle told me he'd much rather be known for creating devices that hook the virtual world up with the real world, rather than as the open source teledildonics guy. One example is his idea of a device that turns your lights on and off in the room in which you're playing a horror video game. The lights would turn and on off to the lights flickering in the game.

Whether or not Kyle can beat his teledildonics rap is anyone's guess. Till then, enjoy the recording.

Joel Greenberg
Austin, TX
March, 2006